November 17, 1999|by ELIZABETH BARTOLAI (A free-lance story for The Morning Call)

People who want to comment on one of a Weisenberg Township developer's challenges to the zoning ordinance should get their chance tonight.

Weisenberg supervisors are wrapping up a challenge brought by Timothy Schadler that includes a plan for Ridge View Park.

The plan calls for a mobile home development of 119 homes along Folk Road. The 41-acre parcel is zoned rural. The township's ordinance allows mobile home parks only in areas zoned village center.

FOR THE RECORD - (Published Thursday, November 18, 1999) Jon Swartz is the attorney for Timothy Schadler, who is challenging the Weisenberg Township zoning ordinance. Swartz's first name was omitted from a story Wednesday.

Supervisors have held several hearings over the past year where both Schadler's attorneys and Maria Mullane, who was hired by the township to defend its ordinance, presented witnesses. That testimony wrapped up in July.

Township solicitor John Roberts said Tuesday that he will explain the legal rules supervisors need to follow when considering this challenge. "After public comment the record will be closed," Roberts said.

Roberts doesn't expect supervisors to make a decision about the challenge tonight.

In February 1998 before the start of testimony in the challenge, Schadler asked Supervisor Robert Milot to step down while the remaining two board members heard his challenge.

Milot wouldn't remove himself from the case, so the issue went to Lehigh County Court. Last November, Lehigh County Court Judge Robert Steinberg dismissed Schadler's request.

Schadler has several zoning challenges pending. Tonight, supervisors also may tackle Schadler's challenge submitted with plans for another mobile home development on the same tract of land. This plan, also called Ridge View Park, calls for 113 mobile homes.

At the first hearing regarding that challenge last month, Mullane argued that there is no significant difference between the challenges and made a motion to dismiss it.

Earlier this month, Schadler's wife Patricia submitted a zoning challenge. It calls for development of a mobile home park on about 31 acres in a village center zone. Weisenberg's ordinance allows mobile home parks only on village center tracts of at least 50 contiguous acres.

Swartz said the land where Schadler proposes this mobile home park is along Wertman Road. That tract is under contract of sale to Schadler, Swartz said.

Earlier this month, Weisenberg supervisors tabled action on a proposed ordinance that would have allowed mobile home parks on 25 contiguous acres of usable land in a village center zone.

A fourth Schadler zoning challenge is being appealed to Commonwealth Court. Schadler's challenge calling for a townhouse development on the same Folk Road site was denied by supervisors in October 1997.

Lehigh County Court upheld the supervisors' decision. In a decision dated Oct. 14, Judge William E. Ford agreed with supervisors that Weisenberg Township is not in a path of growth.

Roberts said supervisors will again need to consider whether the township is in the path of growth when deciding Schadler's challenge submitted with the plan for 119 mobile homes.

In 1996 Schadler sought to change the zoning on that 41-acre tract to village center, but Weisenberg officials rejected that request based on a lack of development plans.